This week we ran through the basic steps of building your first computer, but there’s a lot more info out there. Here’s some more reading that we recommend for both the building process and what to do after you’ve built your machine.

As you’re going through the part picking process, these are some sites that you may want to check out:

The Logical Increments PC Buying Guide is a simple guide for picking out hardware, and it’s regularly updated with modern parts. It’s a pretty great “cheat sheet” that gives you a few recommended builds, though don’t think you need to follow it religiously. It’s a great starting point, though, as you begin to do your own research.

PCPartPicker is a good price comparison tool, but is even more useful for posting your possible builds on forums when you ask for help as they have a handy export tool.

Reddit’s Buildapc forum is one of the best resources I’ve found. You can get a ton of advice from other veteran builders, both on picking out parts and on building the machine. Reddit accounts are free and take just a few seconds to make, so it’s well worth it.

Tom’s Hardware is a very popular review site, and their forums abound with knowledgeable users. I’d also check out ExtremeTech.

NCIX Tech Tips and Linus Tech Tips are two YouTube channels featuring Linus Sebastian, one of my favorite hardware gurus on the net. He does a lot of unboxings and hardware reviews, which are great, but you’ll also find some really fantastic tips and guides in there for building computers. His talk about futureproofing myths is particularly informative for when you’re picking out your parts, and something I recommend every first-time builder watch. We also mentioned his cable management guide in lesson 3.

Tonymacx86’s site is the place to go if you’re looking to build a Hackintosh. Be sure to read the Buyer’s Guide, which is a super easy way to find good hardware that’s compatible with OS X.

Once you’ve built your computer, here are some of the next steps you might want to take:

Stress test your hardware. Some of you recommended that this is a good way to make sure all your hardware is running in tip-top shape when you first build your computer.

Overclock your Intel processor. If you want to squeeze as much speed as possible out of your processor, overclocking is a great way to do it. It’s a complicated process though, so we recommend reading our uber-long guide. If you have an AMD processor or a non-Core i series Intel, you’ll have to Google around for a guide to your specific CPU.

Clean your computer regularly. You won’t need this right off the bat, but I recommend keeping this guide on hand. You’ll be surprised by how fast a year goes by and the inside of your computer is filled with dust. We’ve also covered this in an episode of the Lifehacker show, if you’d like to see a video demonstration.

This marks the end of our computer-building journey, but like we said, there’s a lot more to discover out there, and these resources should get you started. As always, if you’re behind on your lessons, you can find everything you’ve missed in the Computer Building Complete Guide.